Miss Sophia was past her first youth, but still very girlish at times. Under her girlishness there was a grim determination. She had made up her mind to marry Uncle Bainbridge. My wife, as I have already said, had been inclined to favour the idea, since it would keep strangers from getting hold of Uncle Bainbridge's money. But now that Uncle Bainbridge and Lady Agatha were getting along so well together my wife had begun to hope that Uncle Bainbridge would never marry anybody. We both thought the friendship might become an ideal, but none the less overmastering, passion; one of those sacred things, you know, of the sort that keeps a man single all his life. If Uncle Bainbridge remained unmarried out of regard for Lady Agatha, we agreed, it would be much better for him at his time of life than to wed Miss Sophia. So we both considered Miss Sophia's visit rather inopportune. Not that we felt that Uncle Bainbridge was predisposed toward her. On the contrary, he had always manifested more fear than affection for her. But, I repeat, she was a determined woman. The quality of her determination needed no better evidence than the fact that she had, to put it vulgarly, pursued her quarry across the seas. It was evident that the citadel of Uncle Bainbridge's heart was to undergo a terrible assault. As for him, when he heard she was coming, he only emitted a noncommittal snort. Miss Sophia, when she arrived, had apparently put in the months since we had seen her in resolute attempts at rejuvenation. She was more girlish than I had known her in fifteen years. And she had set up a lisp. She greeted Uncle Bainbridge impulsively, effusively. “You dear man,” she shrilled into his telephone, “you don't detherve it, but gueth what I've brought you all the way acroth the ocean! A new rethipe for apple dumplings!” “How?” said Uncle Bainbridge. “What say?” And when she repeated it he said “Umph!” disconnected himself, and blew his nose loudly. He rarely said anything to her but “Umph!” walking away afterward with now and then a worried backward glance. When we told Miss Sophia about Lady Agatha, and she finally understood the intimacy that had grown up between Lady Agatha and Uncle Bainbridge, she looked reproachfully at my wife, as if to say, “You have been a traitor to my cause!” And then she announced very primly, quite forgetting her lisp, “I am quite sure that I, for one, do not care to make the acquaintance of this person!” “Cousin Sophia,” said my wife sharply, “what do you mean by that?” “I think, Cousin Marian, that my meaning is sufficiently clear.” “You forget,” rejoined my wife icily, “that dear Lady Agatha is our guest.” Miss Sophia sniffed, and was silent. “Besides,” continued Marian, “what can you possibly have against her?” “Marian,” said Miss Sophia, “will you answer me one question?” “Perhaps, Cousin Sophia.” “Cousin Marian, where, I ask you, _where_ is Sir Arthur Pelham?”